1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of automatic teller machines and credit card machines and more particularly to the machines and methods for processing various types and various denominations of currency including cash, bills, and prepaid, credit, check, debit and smart cards.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Automatic Teller Machines or ATMs began appearing in many major banks. As the name implies, an xe2x80x9cautomatic tellerxe2x80x9d handles most of the banking transactions of it""s human teller counterpart. The transactions include dispensing cash, transferring money, taking payments and issuing cash advances. Typical ATM machines available today provide a variety of functions and capabilities including the ability to perform cash withdrawals, fund transfers, balance inquiries, receipts of transactions printed, electronic journaling both locally and to remote servers for redundant data recovery and storage, advanced graphics support such as high resolution color screens, secured and tamper-resistant packaging, and multilingual support in English, Spanish and French. One ATM available is the Tidel IS-1000 ATM as described at online URL (www.atmfinancial.com).
Unlike its human teller counterpart, the ATM provides teller services tirelessly and continuously 24 hours a day, every day of the year. But, nearly 30 years later, the ATM is still not much more than a cash dispenser. In fact, with hundreds of thousands of ATMs installed in the U.S., research shows nearly half provide only cash dispensing transactions. And, only five percent of the remaining ATMs do anything more than the original, basic banking transactions.
In addition to the basic functions of a teller, consumers are demanding more twenty-four hour services from their local banks. One such service is the CoinBank(copyright) from CoinBank Automated Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Cash Technologies. CoinBank is a line of self-service coin deposit machines for banking and retail establishments. The CoinBank machine counts coins precisely by electronically evaluating the metal content of the coins and is programmable for most countries"" currency. The CoinBank system incorporates debris-handling features that are essential for reliable self-service operation. For more information see online URL (www.cashtechnologies.com).
Along with ATMs and self-service coin deposit machines, another area of technology for financial transactions that continues to grow is smart cards. During the early years of smart card development it became evident that the xe2x80x9clurexe2x80x9d of the smart card was its ease of use coupled with security. Smart cards were to be used for debit cards, credit cards, IEP (intersector electronic purse) cards, and telephone cards.
The fundamental idea of the smart card was to have a device into which the user could xe2x80x9cloadxe2x80x9d money, and use this stored money to purchase items from merchants who have the proper electronic payment system installed. Companies such as Microsoft, HP, and other European hardware companies have, together, begun to develop standards that would allow smart cards, readers, and personal computers to interact, regardless of the manufacturer. Using these smart cards in concert with personal computers and the Internet, consumers are able to complete financial transactions over the Internet.
Today, with significant technological progress made by the semiconductor industry in terms of memory capacity and the design of the microprocessors, it is possible to store vast amounts of data on smart cards. This, in combination with the drop in cost, due to mass production, has considerably widened the field of applications and has dramatically increased the market demand. Smart cards are used not only in the financial industry but in healthcare, transportation and telecommunications.
The increased popularity of 24-hour banking services along with the advantages of carrying less cash through use of smart cards has not been without its shortcomings. One shortcoming is the handling of different types of currency at ATM machines. Often the counting and verifications of coin deposits using ATMs does not happen until a human teller or human operator verifies an envelope deposit by hand. The CoinBank system described above from Cash Technologies Inc., eliminates the requirement to hand tally coin deposits for ATM deposits. Although the elimination of hand tallying for coins is useful, there is still a problem with the cost of handling coins and bills by financial institutions. Moreover, the difficulty of handling different denominations of currency such as pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollars can vary widely depending on such factors as: (i) how commonly circulated the denomination of coin is, e.g. half-dollars and dollars are used less frequently than quarters and dimes; (ii) how heavy the coins are because the cost to transport heavier the coins is more than the cost to transport lighter coins; (iii) percentage of counterfeit coins of a particular denomination in circulation; and more. Accordingly, a need exists for a method and system to account for the difficulty of handling currency of different denominations of currencies.
Still another problem with handling coins and bills at ATMs and self-service coin deposit machines is the problem of multiple sources of currency. For example, often it is easier for a financial institution such as a bank to take money electronically from a bank card or from a credit card or from a check card or from a debit card than it is from cash such as bills and coins. The labor involved in counting, managing, storing, tracing and securing the cash is often greater than those incurred using electronic transfers from the card holders account. This is especially true when the cardholder has a card from the financial institution such as a bank where the consumer is using the card. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for one credit card merchant, to charge a different fee than another credit merchant. For example, it is well known that American Express(copyright) brand cards charge a different rate to vendors using their brand cards than MasterCard(copyright) and Visa(copyright) Brand cards. Today there is no mechanism to differentiate the charge back to consumers when using different types of currency, such as cash card A from a credit card B. Accordingly, a need exists for a method and system to overcome this problem of handling multiple sources of currency, where there are differing difficulties depending on the currency.
Yet still another problem with handling coins, bills and plastic cards such as cash cards, credit cards, checking cards, debit cards and smart cards at ATMs and self-service coin deposit machines is providing incentives for subsequent purchases. Most businesses use techniques to increase sale of their own goods and services by marketing store branded credit cards and ATMs to their customers. Research has shown that consumers tend to purchase more when store brand cards are used. The deployment of ATMs to enable easy access to cash has also been shown to increase sales in stores with ATMs located inside or near by. However, there is no mechanism today to provide incentives to customers for making subsequent purchases using a specific card versus just any credit (or cash, debit, check or smart card) when replenishing or transferring money to a card. Accordingly, a need exists to overcome this problem as well.
Yet, still another problem with many sources of non-cashed based currencies such as credit cards, debit cards, check cards and smart cards is the loss of anonymity. Many times for certain purchases, consumers do not want their identity to be known. Privacy is especially a concern for certain types of purchase such as pharmaceuticals, payment of fines and other matters which consumers prefer to remain anonymous. Consumers often use cash in such transaction to avoid being tracked by a marketing database linked to a non-cash based transaction. Consumers fear that the consumers"" purchasing habits are being tracked without their consent. Accordingly, a need exist to over come the problem with maintaining anonymity for goods and services without using case.
What is needed is a method and system to overcome the problems with the prior art and to provide a system to handle currency of different denominations and to base fees on the type of currency handled. Preferably, the system is needed to handle multiple sources of currencies such as cash (including bills and coins), cash cards, debit cards, check cards, credit cards and smart cards, while charging different usage rates. Moreover, ideally the system would provide incentives for using certain types of currency by providing incentives to the consumer. Further, the method and system should allow a consumer to maintain privacy as desired by the consumer.